But John Hampstead was a man of many duties, whose time was not easy to command.
"At three," he objected, "I am to address a mother's meeting.
"At four then," Marien suggested, with an engaging smile.
"At four I have to go with a sad-hearted man to see his son in the county jail," John explained apologetically, as he scanned his date book.
"At five!" persisted Marien, the smile giving way before a shadow of impatience.
"It must seem funny to you," he declared, "but I have an engagement at five-thirty which makes it impossible to be here at five. The engagement itself would seem funnier still; but to me it is not funny--only one of the tragedies into which my life is continually drawn. At that hour I am to visit a poor woman who lives on a house boat on the canal. Monday is her husband's pay day, and he invariably reaches home on that night inflamed with liquor, and abuses the woman outrageously. I have promised to be with her when he comes in. I may wait an hour, and I may wait half the night."
"Oh," gasped Marien, with a note of apprehension. "And suppose he turns his violence on you?"
"Why, then I shall defend myself," John answered, good-humoredly, "but without hurting Olaf."
"I am likely to spend the night on that canal boat," he added, "and in the morning Olaf will be ashamed and perhaps penitent. He may thank me and ask me to meet him at the factory gate next Monday night and walk home with him to make sure that his pay envelope gets safely past the door of intervening saloons."
"But why so much concern about unimportant people like that?" questioned Marien, her eyes big with curiosity and wonder.
"Any person in need is important to me," confessed John modestly.
"But how can you spare the time from the regular work of the church?"
"But--but I thought a minister's work was to preach--so eloquently that people will not get drunk; to pray, so earnestly that God will make men strong enough to resist temptation."
"But suppose," smiled John, "that I am God's answer to prayer, his means of helping Olaf to resist temptation. That is the mission of my church, at least that is my ideal for it; not a group of heaven-bound joy-riders, but a life-saving crew. There are twenty men in my church who would meet Olaf at a word from me and walk home with him every night till he felt able to get by the swinging doors upon his own will."